Hamilton College in NY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

Agree with this. My sense is that Hamilton is filled with well-prepared smart kids who come from competitive schools and just don't stand out amongst the tuba-playing, 3 letter athlete, Intel-prize winning child of immigrants. I should know, I almost went to Hamilton until I got off the wait list at one of the above mentioned schools. One of the most successful businesswomen I know is a Hamilton grad.

[Anonymous]

go nescac!

i was out west once and hiding from a storm in one of those sports apparel stores. i was chatting up the sales kid who bragged that he knew every conference in the US to which i said "bet i can stump you" and we bet a big 10 t-shirt which i wear proudly as he'd never heard of the mighty nescac

there are just tons of these nice liberal arts schools up north that still believe in teaching, will mark up a paper and throw it back at you, and provide a good grounding in critical thinking skills.

signed,

a jumbo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

Agree with this. My sense is that Hamilton is filled with well-prepared smart kids who come from competitive schools and just don't stand out amongst the tuba-playing, 3 letter athlete, Intel-prize winning child of immigrants. I should know, I almost went to Hamilton until I got off the wait list at one of the above mentioned schools. One of the most successful businesswomen I know is a Hamilton grad.

But, isn't this really true for all of the small LBACS? Take e.g., Trinity College up in Hartford. "They" say that its not waht it used to be but really a fall back for those rejected from the Ivies?

[Anonymous]

Yes, just as a judgeship on the court of appeals is a fall back from the supreme court; writing for the post is a fall back from the nyt, etc etc. sry, fatigue factor with the ivy obsession

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, just as a judgeship on the court of appeals is a fall back from the supreme court; writing for the post is a fall back from the nyt, etc etc. sry, fatigue factor with the ivy obsession

Such a good point! Those who doubt the credentials of any top 50 school, and yes Trinity (#37 US News) and Hamilton (#17 US News) are both in this category, need to take a look at the admissions requirements for college these days. And remember you'll need to assume that to get in you need to be at the 75% percentage for standardized testing unless you have a hook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:go nescac!

i was out west once and hiding from a storm in one of those sports apparel stores. i was chatting up the sales kid who bragged that he knew every conference in the US to which i said "bet i can stump you" and we bet a big 10 t-shirt which i wear proudly as he'd never heard of the mighty nescac

there are just tons of these nice liberal arts schools up north that still believe in teaching, will mark up a paper and throw it back at you, and provide a good grounding in critical thinking skills.

signed,

a jumbo

Well said. Go Tufts!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

It's a reach to call WashU a target school for almost anyone. I know kids who were accepted to Vandy who weren't accepted to WashU. I know kids accepted to Penn who weren't accepted to WashU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

It's a reach to call WashU a target school for almost anyone. I know kids who were accepted to Vandy who weren't accepted to WashU. I know kids accepted to Penn who weren't accepted to WashU.

Um, isn't a "target school" similar to a "reach," as opposed to a "safety"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

It's a reach to call WashU a target school for almost anyone. I know kids who were accepted to Vandy who weren't accepted to WashU. I know kids accepted to Penn who weren't accepted to WashU.

Um, isn't a "target school" similar to a "reach," as opposed to a "safety"?

No. There are safeties, targets and reaches. The Ivys and any of the top 15 or so schools are reaches for almost everyone.

[Anonymous]

^^ For my child safeties were the schools where she scored above the 75%ile (and I'm not saying that standardized scores are everything), her targets were where she scored at or very, very near the 75%ile and her reaches were those schools where she scored at about the 50% percentile. Those kids at the 50%ile and especially at the 25%ile usually have a hook of some kind- recruited athlete, URM, first generation college student, legacy, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

Hamilton is quite hard to get in to these days and MANY kids apply ED so it's their first choice, not their back up.

Yes, things have changed dramatically in the last decade. I got an email from my college recently (an Ivy) that said that applications have doubled in the last decade, and this is a school that had a pretty high applications to start with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know if anything has changed, but when I was applying to colleges about 10 years ago, Hamilton was known to New Englanders as the place where rich kids go when they couldn't get in anywhere else. It was not well-respected, but again, things may be different now.

The college admissions picture can change a lot in 10 years and a good strategic marketing campaign can make a big difference in a school's selectivity. Look at Wash U for an example -- over the past decade it has become a target school for many kids from this area who are on the cusp at Ivy-level schools. As a result, it's filled with strivers and has very impressive exmissions stats for law and med schools. Hamilton is similarly a back-up for kids who don't quite edge into Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Middlebury (the NESCAC schools), but these are definitely not kids who "couldn't get in anywhere else".

It's a reach to call WashU a target school for almost anyone. I know kids who were accepted to Vandy who weren't accepted to WashU. I know kids accepted to Penn who weren't accepted to WashU.

Yes, Wash U is definitely playing in the same sandbox as Vandy and Penn, but it's a target for kids who have a good shot at HYP, Columbia, Brown and Stanford. You're not going to find many kids who were accepted at Wash U, but not at those schools. This doesn't mean that those schools are "better than" Wash U, or that the kids who go to them are "smarter than" kids at Wash U -- just that they're a tad higher on the food chain. These are all great schools.

[Anonymous]

Earlier in this thread, there was at least one poster asking about the value of a small liberal arts education. I thought about that as I read this from an LA Times article this afternoon about the shooting in Colorado:

"Kelly Huffman, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Riverside, said Holmes was in her Drugs and Behavior class in 2010 and did well in what she said was a challenging course. She described him as “a smart and quiet guy.”

Huffman said that she spoke Friday with the teaching assistant who led the course's smaller discussion section that Holmes attended, and that the assistant didn't recall the shooting suspect. "So that probably means he [Holmes] was pretty quiet," Huffman said."

So, basically, both the teacher AND the teaching assistant didn't recall a student in the class? This would typically not happen in a small liberal arts school. Quiet or not, the student would be known (by the teacher because there wouldn't be a teaching assistant!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No. There are safeties, targets and reaches. The Ivys and any of the top 15 or so schools are reaches for almost everyone.

Got it. Would still view Washington U. as a target for many area kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Earlier in this thread, there was at least one poster asking about the value of a small liberal arts education. I thought about that as I read this from an LA Times article this afternoon about the shooting in Colorado:

"Kelly Huffman, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Riverside, said Holmes was in her Drugs and Behavior class in 2010 and did well in what she said was a challenging course. She described him as “a smart and quiet guy.”

Huffman said that she spoke Friday with the teaching assistant who led the course's smaller discussion section that Holmes attended, and that the assistant didn't recall the shooting suspect. "So that probably means he [Holmes] was pretty quiet," Huffman said."

So, basically, both the teacher AND the teaching assistant didn't recall a student in the class? This would typically not happen in a small liberal arts school. Quiet or not, the student would be known (by the teacher because there wouldn't be a teaching assistant!)

Ugh. By all means, let's exploit a national tragedy to make a strained argument in favor of LACs.